Probably the wrong field to get into if they're effected that much or don't become use to it very quickly. I remember doing a SICU pharmacy rotation and being invited down to see the autopsy of one of the patients who died on service. There was the pathology team and interns, surgery (SCIU and trauma teams) interns, my preceptor, myself, and somehow a nursing student came along. Everything was doing great till the cut open the chest with pruning shears and caused the nursing student to pass out. Thankfully I was behind her as I ended up catching her before she hit her head. Though before hand when they were removing the intestines she looked pretty green in the gills so I guess she was close to fainting anyways.

In pharmacology lab I nearly passed out every time we were traching rats to observe opiate, cholinergic, muscarinic, and sympathetic nervous system effects. By the time I graduated I'd been somewhat inured but on a VA rotation I found myself passing out on observing an iliac crest biopsy, and tapping an ascitic belly. The autopsy was no problem as the patient was already dead. Years later after attending many CODEs, I found myself observing an open heart surgery, standing on a box behind a draped sheet at the top of the patient's head. It was one of the most fascinating experiences I'd ever observed. But, it took 25 yrs to get to the point where I wouldn't keel over onto the patient!

Blood I could handle. Open heart massage in the ER I could handle. Battlefield injuries and autopsies, no problem. The thing that always made me run for the barf bucket was chest tube insertion, for some reason.

The great thing about medicine is that there is a field for just about anyone. I had a phobia of blood and dead people and I survived and even got used to a lot of it. People go into the health field for all sorts of reason.

Except me. I instead had the embarassing experience of having my stomach growl, loudly, during a surgery I was watching. They were using electrocautery...and cooked meat smells like cooked meat, no matter the animal.

I once walked into a room where an elderly man was getting a blood transfusion and the blood was on a pump (back in the old days) and the tubing had come loose, and the pump had sprayed the blood everywhere, so it looked as if the man had been butchered with a knife. I was a brand new student, but thank goodness did notice that the man was not himself bleeding9 His site had clotted off) and seemed to be asleep and fine and that most of the blood was on the walls and on the sheets and the floor.It did give me a fright at first and I have never forgotten it.

I had a C-section Thursday, and it was all draped off and so forth, but I could see just the faintest reflection in one of the overhead lights above my abdomen - no real gore, just a slightly perceptible view of what was happening to me, and far from being gross it actually made the experience seem less surreal because I could see thing occurring even though I couldn't feel them. I wonder if that could be made to happen in a more official fashion without totally sickening more sensitive patients?

Hahahahha! Poor kid! This was really great since I read the next post first!

Sadly, I too have been there, done that, but blood was not MY trigger. Noooo, I'm fine with blood. I had to go and puke during a pelvic! And then a few days later I hit my head and knocked myself out on the freezer door in the break room. (PA: Who is the president? ME:...um... Reagan? Wait.. no...) I ended up working with that PA a couple yrs later and he STILL gave me heat for it! That FP rotation was EVIL, man. Pure evil. (sigh).

to be fair, as an ICU nurse I have seen many a Dr not new ones either, get a little green. I saw a cardiologist vomit in a trash can in the pt's room after he lifted the sheet and realized they had filled the bed with stool. Good thing they were intubated and sedated and couldn't be offended. I couldn't resist asking if he would help me clean him up as he ran out of the room. still funny.

Back when I was in the sixth grade, both my class and the other sixth grade class watched the movie Hemo The Magnificent - together in one class room. The heavy drapes were drawn, reducing the flow of fresh air. Also, part one was shown just before lunch time. (A potential for hypoglycemia?)

When the scene that shows an actual human heart beating appeared, my perifreal vision started going black. The next thing I knew, I was on the tiled floor with my teacher bending over me. Yep, I fainted; thus ending my plans to become a veterinarian. I got to rest on the couch in the principal's office until my Mother could come and take me home. I got the rest of the day off from school.

Welcome to my whining!

This blog is entirely for entertainment purposes. All posts about patients may be fictional, or be my experience, or were submitted by a reader, or any combination of the above. Factual statements may or may not be accurate.

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